In a rare, but not-unprecedented move, Fox has pulled the plug on Hieroglyph, a show that it had ordered 13 episodes of rather than just a pilot. Only the first episode has actually been filmed, but scripts for other episodes had been written and were presumably in the process of being filmed.

In addition to the unusual move of canceling a show it had ordered straight to series and had been actively marketing, there's also the fact that a fantasy show set in Ancient Egypt had to be an expensive production. So how bad did the show have to be for Fox to eat the already spent costs? Or, alternatively, how much do they think they're saving stopping production now rather than gamble on it?

All we know is that the show "wasn't creatively coming together the way executives had hoped." The show was created by Travis Beacham (Pacific Rim, Clash of the Titans) and starred Max Brown, Reece Ritchie, Condola Rashad and John Rhys-Davies. The official description of it was that it followed a "notorious thief who is plucked from prison to serve the Pharoah, forcing him to navigate palace intrigue, seductive concubines, criminal underbellies and divine sorcerers, as he races to stop the downfall of one of history's greatest civilizations."